


Stockholm Syndrome

by sister_wolf



Series: Devil's Road [5]
Category: Hard Core Logo (1996), Lone Hero (2002), due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-01-18
Updated: 2004-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-12 09:39:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sister_wolf/pseuds/sister_wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At first, Ray isn't sure why he's awake.  The clock by the bed says 11:49.  He's freezing cold-- naked-- and this isn't his bed.</p><p>A quick grope around reveals why he's cold-- all the blankets are pulled away to the other side of the mattress.  Someone's wrapped up in them like a sausage.  All that's showing is dark hair, and for a second he thinks it's Fraser, and then he remembers.  Not Fraser, not ever again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stockholm Syndrome

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place after _Hard Core Logo_ and includes spoilers for the end of the movie. Knowledge of _Lone Hero_ is definitely not necessary to read this; those of you who do remember the movie will notice that I've changed canon in a few significant places. Huge thanks to my awesome betas, Brooklinegirl, Heuradys, and Justacat.
> 
> IMPORTANT WARNING: This series is unfinished and will never be finished. It also ends at a particularly bad point in the plot. I really do apologize for that.

At first, Ray isn't sure why he's awake. The clock by the bed says 11:49. He's freezing cold-- naked-- and this isn't his bed.

A quick grope around reveals why he's cold-- all the blankets are pulled away to the other side of the mattress. Someone's wrapped up in them like a sausage. All that's showing is dark hair, and for a second he thinks it's Fraser, and then he remembers. Not Fraser, not ever again.

He scoots closer to Cal, eyeing the way he's wrapped the blankets around him, trying to figure out how to get some blankets back for himself. Not a surprise that Ray's cold-- he's too skinny, doesn't have enough insulation, which worried the hell out of Fraser when they were up in Nature's Deep Freezer-- but Cal's a big, solid guy, kind of guy who'll get thick around the middle if he doesn't keep active. Like Fraser. So it doesn't make sense that he's shivering while Cal's practically smothered in blankets.

Closer to Cal, Ray can hear the sound that woke him up out of a dead sleep. Cal's moaning, really quietly, and Ray's starting to grin, figuring he's having a sexy dream, when he makes out a few words that wipe the grin right off his face: _no please no_.

Not a sexy dream.

From years of dealing with his dad, Ray has a lot of experience in waking someone up from a nightmare safely. He slides out of bed and calls Cal's name from a safe distance. No response, just the same moaning and mumbling. He reaches a hand out, carefully, and jostles at the blankets around Cal's feet

Cal doesn't come up yelling and swinging, which is how Ray's dad used to react to being woken up from a nightmare. He just sucks in a deep breath and freezes, not moving at all.

"Cal? Hey. Are you all right?" Nothing for a few moments-- Ray's not even sure if Cal's breathing.

From under the pile of blankets, there's a muffled, "Yeah, I'm fine."

"You don't sound fine. Is it safe to get back in bed?"

"Yes." Cal shoves the blankets away, sounding exhausted and pissy. "I'd've never let you share a bed with me if I was physically dangerous, Ray."

Ray lies down with his head propped up on one arm. "You seen a shrink about this?"

"Yeah." Cal scrubs his hands over his face, just a big dark shape in the dim light.

Ray waits, but Cal doesn't volunteer anything else. "You wanna maybe talk to somebody who isn't a shrink?"

"Fuck." He pushes his hands against his eyes. "Maybe, but even if I wanted to, I signed these papers, confidentiality agreement, and if I tell anybody outside the Bureau any details about what happened, they toss me in jail and throw away the key."

"Shit." Ray isn't sure if he's pushing too hard. Maybe he should let it go, but then again, it might help Cal if he talked to someone who wasn't an FBI headshrinker. "What if you told me the basics, no details? It might help."

Silence. Ray tries not to fidget.

"Yeah, I think I could tell you the basics," Cal finally says. "If you really want to hear them. I gotta warn you though, it's a shitty, ugly story."

Ray keeps his mouth shut, waiting.

Cal's voice is low, rough. One arm is flung over his eyes. "I was deep undercover for almost a year. Infiltrating a group that was led by this guy-- intelligent guy, charismatic, but seriously unstable. He started escalating, started getting increasingly violent. I told my superiors that he was getting worse, told them that we needed to get him off the streets before he killed somebody. They overruled me, told me to stay with him." Long pause. "I'm not sure if there was a leak or someone just got sloppy, but he. He found out what I was."

 _Fuck._ Crime scene photos start dancing nauseatingly inside Ray's head-- he knows what happens to undercover cops who get found out.

"He." Cal stops talking, long enough that Ray starts to wonder if he'll be able to finish the story. "He decided not to kill me. Thought it'd be amusing to break me instead. And he did." Cal's voice drops to a near-whisper. "I forgot who I was. Forgot I was anything but his."

Ray swallows, hard. _Oh god. The handcuffs, the way he freaked out about the handcuffs. I knew there was something seriously wrong there, but I never imagined..._

Cal lurches to his feet and crosses to the window. He pulls the blinds back a few inches and looks out. With his back to the room, Cal's voice gets stronger, calm and matter-of-fact, like he's giving a statement. "I became part of the-- part of his group. I had numerous chances to escape, but I stayed with the group for over a year after I was found out. Eventually I became his second in command."

Cal stops abruptly, takes a deep breath, continues. "I was an accessory to murder. I orchestrated a hostage situation. The only-- the only thing I did right was to make sure none of the hostages got killed or raped. And for that they gave me my walking papers and a nice pension so I'd keep my mouth shut about how badly the Bureau fucked up."

* * *

Cal grabs a pack of cigarettes, tries to light a smoke, but his hands are shaking too badly. Ray isn't saying anything. He must be horrified. He's right to be. Cal didn't even tell him the worst of it. He couldn't face seeing that look in Ray's eyes.

He finally manages to work the lighter. Cal takes a drag, remembering Bart's voice ( _Better than sex, ain't it, King, first smoke of the day_ ).

There are rustling sounds from the other side of the room. Ray, putting his clothes on. He heads for the door, pauses with a hand resting against the doorframe. "I've gotta get out of here." He doesn't look back.

The door closes.

* * *

Ray has no real memory of how he got to his car. On autopilot, he finds his way onto the Northwest Tollway. Nice empty stretch of road, not a whole lot of traffic this late at night. Enough space to think.

 _I was an accessory to murder._ It's running like a looped tape through his head.

Accessory to murder. Ray just can't-- he can't fucking reconcile that statement with the Cal that he knows.

But how well does he really know Cal? They had sex a couple times. He seems like a nice guy-- but Ray hears the same damn thing from victims all the time. "He seemed like a nice guy." Yeah, sure, until the state crime lab is running DNA analysis on human remains found in that nice guy's backyard.

He liked Cal. He really did. He still does.

He just can't fucking figure out how to make the two pieces fit together-- the Cal who listened to him talk about Fraser and then held him when he cried, and the Cal who was an accessory to murder.

God, he wishes he could talk to Fraser. Fraser would have the answer, or if he didn't, he'd come up with some kind of weird-ass story about caribou to make Ray feel better.

He needs to talk to Fraser. He's got Fraser's number, stuffed under a pile of crap on his coffee table. Hasn't used it yet, over two months since he left Yellowknife and he still hasn't had the guts to call his own goddamned best friend. And now he's gonna call him in the middle of the night to ask for advice about the guy he's sleeping with, who he picked up because he looked a little like Fraser. _I suck._

And he's practically halfway to fucking Rockford. Ray pulls a U-turn at the next turnaround he comes to and heads back to the city.

* * *

Cal's hands are still shaking, which is making opening the bottle of whiskey he had tucked into his suitcase, just in case, pretty fucking challenging. He finally manages it and pours some into one of the disposable plastic cups from the bathroom. Not drinking straight from the bottle makes it easier to judge how much he's really drinking. Or maybe it just makes it easier to pretend he's not a pathetic fuck drifting towards functional alcoholism.

The memories are too close tonight. He's got to numb himself, got to drink enough that he'll just fall asleep and not dream. Please, please, not dream.

Cal puts the booze and cigarettes on the bedside table and sits down on the bed with his back against the wall. Chain-smokes for a while, watches the level of liquid in the bottle slowly drop.

He closes his eyes and he's there, seeing the gawky kid in a too-big uniform look up from his desk in surprise and alarm.

 _"It's, uh-- it's past visiting hours."_

 _"Is that right," Cal says, tossing a quarter in the air and catching it. The heads side has devil horns and a goatee drawn on it._

 _"It's his job, he'd know," Bart says. He's lying down on the jail cell's only bench._

 _"Huh." Cal tosses the coin again. "What do you think, Bart?"_

 _"Think you can get me the fuck out of here," Bart says, sticking his fingers in his ears._

Cal's stomach decides it's had just about enough of this. He stumbles to the bathroom just in time.

A few miserable minutes later, he's covered in cold sweat, hanging onto the side of the toilet in case the dry heaves come back.

 _I can't fucking take this anymore. God damn it. I just want to forget._

* * *

It's almost 1:30 in the morning, and Ray's staring at the scrap of paper with Fraser's number on it. If it's 1:30 in Chicago, it must be... 12:30 there? If he's not fucking up the time zones. Fraser's probably in bed by now. Early to bed, early to rise, yadda yadda. But Ray's gotta talk to him.

The phone rings, once, twice, and then he hears Fraser's voice, sounding completely awake and alert. "Corporal Benton Fraser speaking."

 _Crap_. Somehow, Ray hadn't really expected Fraser to pick up. "Uh. Hi, Frase. Jeez, I hope I didn't wake you up." Ray smacks his palm against his forehead. _Way to sound dumb there, Kowalski._

There's a pause, and then Fraser asks, "Ray?" He sounds kind of stunned.

"Yeah. Listen, I'm sorry for waking you up." This was a stupid idea. Ray's going to do the small talk thing for as little as he can get away with, and then he's going to hang up and go to bed and worry about shit with Cal in the morning.

"I wasn't asleep. Is something wrong, Ray?" There's almost no emotion in Fraser's voice. Oh, he's polite, he's always polite, but there used to be something more in his voice. Something warm.

"No, nothing important."

"I see." There's a pause. Ray keeps waiting for him to say something, but apparently he's going to give him the Patient Mountie look-- Ray can see it in his head, like Fraser is standing right next to him-- until he spills.

Ray cracks first. He always does. "Yeah, there's something. It's nothing really. I just wanted to see if you had some advice."

"On a case?"

"Um. No." Ray fidgets, staring at the empty pizza boxes piled on his coffee table. "It's, um, it's personal."

"I'd be happy to listen, Ray. It's what one does for a friend, after all."

And Ray's glowing and squirming at the same time, because Fraser still considers him a friend, but he's also pouring on the guilt trip at the same time. "I know, I know, I should have called before now. It's just been crazy busy here, cases coming out of my a-- my ears, and the Duck Brothers tried to start a comedy club so they were down to half time for a while, and then a few other guys transferred out, and I haven't hardly had time to feed the turtle, much less do anything else." Other than pick up strange men at bars. Well, one strange man, anyhow.

"I see. What's wrong, Ray?" His voice is slightly warmer-- not totally thawed, but it's getting closer.

"I, um. Okay." Ray tries to put his thoughts in order. He can't tell Fraser any real details. "What would you do if you knew someone had done something awful, something unforgivable, but you also knew he wasn't exactly himself at the time?"

"Was it something illegal?"

 _Shit_. "Um, don't worry about the legal aspect of the thing. That's not the problem."

"Very well." Fraser sounds doubtful. "When you say he wasn't exactly himself at the time, do you mean he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or that he was mentally unstable?"

"More of a mental thing. See, he was undercover, and he got caught, and tortured, I guess, and he ended up joining the people he was supposed to be spying on, and doing bad stuff for them."

"So you're saying he experienced traumatic bonding, also known as Stockholm Syndrome?"

"Uh, yeah. I guess." Ray knew Fraser would come up with some kind of explanation, no matter how weird.

"Legally speaking, Stockholm Syndrome has never been used successfully as a defense--"

"Fraser! Do not worry about the legal stuff. That's not what I'm asking. What I need to know is-- can you forgive someone for something he did when he was all fucked up by the Stockholm Syndrome stuff?"

"Do I know this person?" Fraser's voice is tentative.

At first Ray can't figure out what he means, and then the light dawns. "No-- no, it's not Vecchio. It's someone you don't know."

Fraser still sounds weird. "Are you personally involved with this person?"

Ray has no idea how to answer that one. _No, Frase, we're just fucking like bunnies because he kind of looks like you._ That's a lie, though-- not that Cal doesn't look a little like Fraser, he does-- that they're just fucking. Ray isn't sure exactly what they're doing, but he doesn't think it's just fucking anymore.

"The reason I'm asking is that-- Ray, this person could be emotionally unstable, and quite possibly a danger to himself and others."

"No, he's not-- he's not dangerous. He's kind of fucked up, but not dangerous. And you didn't answer my question."

Fraser sighs, almost inaudibly. "Forgiveness isn't a recipe. You can't put in a standard set of ingredients and get the same result every time. To a certain extent, it depends on whether the person is truly repentant, but in the end, forgiveness comes from within. I can't tell you whether to forgive someone. All I can tell you is-- Ray, please be careful."

"I will be, Frase, don't worry about me."

"I'll try not to." Fraser's voice is a little husky.

Ray closes his eyes, swallows hard. _Fuck, Ray, don't do this, don't read more into it than what's really there._ "Anyway, I should let you go. It's gotta be almost one in the morning, your time."

"It was good to hear your voice."

"Yeah... yeah, you too. Take care of yourself. Watch out for angry mooses."

"Moose, Ray. I shall."

Ray hangs up the phone and punches the sofa cushion. There's a jumble of mixed emotions swirling around in his head, and he doesn't know what to do about any of them.

* * *

Cal lies with his head propped up by pillows, balancing a plastic cup of whiskey on his stomach. His arms and legs feel warm and heavy. He stubs out his last cigarette, because accidentally setting the bed on fire is pretty high on his list of stupid ways to die. Takes another sip, notices his lips are numb.

Cal closes his eyes and he's there, like it's a movie and he's watching someone else on the big screen, but he can't open his eyes, he can't wake up.

 _The jail in this town isn't much to look at-- just a one-story building with an old cruiser parked out front. "Follow my lead, and don't do anything stupid," Cal tells Iggy._

 _Iggy scowls at him, muttering something under his breath, but Cal ignores him. He's in command while Bart's in jail, and there's no way in hell even Iggy is stupid enough to challenge that._

 _Cal swings the door open, his eyes flicking over the inside of the jail. One deputy, sitting at the desk, and Bart and Dog stuck in the jail's only cell._

 _Bart's lying on a bench, looking completely at ease. "Hey," Cal says amiably. Bart grins and flashes a peace sign._

 _Dog's leaning against the cell bars. "Never thought you ugly motherfuckers would look so good." Iggy grins and walks over to him, slapping him on the back._

 _The gawky kid in a too-big deputy's uniform speaks up, looking alarmed. "It's, uh-- it's past visiting hours."_

 _Cal nods thoughtfully. "Is that right." He's tossing a quarter in the air and catching it. The heads side has devil horns and a goatee drawn on it._

 _"It's his job, he'd know," Bart says, still lying down comfortably._

 _"Huh," Cal says, tossing the coin again. "What do you think, Bart?"_

 _"Think you can get me the fuck out of here." Bart sticks his fingers in his ears._

 _Cal flips the coin, watching the kid's eyes grow bigger and more terrified. He tosses the coin and watches it land, heads side up. The kid's death warrant. But nobody else is close enough to see which side it is. "Looks like your lucky day, kid," he says. "Put your hands behind your head and stand up slowly, and you might actually survive this if you don't do anything stupid."_

 _A door on the side of the room opens, and the sheriff comes out, his hand on his gun. "What the hell's going on here?"_

 _There's an explosion of sound and the sheriff drops, spraying blood. Cal's turning to yell at Iggy, and he can see it happen in slow motion-- Iggy swings the gun right and pulls the trigger again, and the kid jerks like a rag doll, flung back against his chair._

 _"Fuck! Goddammit, Iggy, I said not to kill the kid!" Cal's breathing hard, seeing red, and his trigger finger is itching to squeeze._

 _Iggy just grins, no idea exactly how close he is to having his head blown right off. "Sorry, King," he says insincerely. "I guess I just got carried away."_

 _"Are you idiots done arguing? Could one of you motherfuckers maybe, oh I don't know, unlock the goddamn fucking door and let me out of here?" Bart stands up, looking pissed. Iggy grabs the keys and lets him out._

 _Cal's just standing by the door, trying to calm his breathing. If he kills Iggy for no good reason, Bart will be even more angry, and he'll take his displeasure out on Cal. Unconsciously, he wraps one hand around the other wrist, rubbing the still-reddened skin. It's a bad idea, any way you look at it, and Cal just needs to calm the fuck down._

 _Bart steps out of the jail cell and grins. "Well, that pretty much does it for the local law enforcement community."_

 _Iggy wanders over to the sheriff's body and pulls the silver star off his chest. "Nice place."_

 _"Sure it is, kind of a Mayberry thing going on here," Bart says, making a beeline for the cabinet behind the sheriff's desk._

 _Cal pauses by the deputy's body, looks at him, makes an abortive movement to touch his shoulder, pulls back just in time. He shakes his head, asks casually, "How'd you get pinched by these guys?"_

 _Bart pulls his gun out of the cabinet and slams it closed. His voice is coldly angry. "That's something we gotta settle before we split. Somebody find me a phone book and a map."_

* * *

Ray puts the phone down, missing Fraser so much it's like a physical ache. He can't tell if Fraser's happy up there or not, though he should be happy as a penguin in ice water, now that he's home. Or, well, close to home, since policing Yellowknife isn't exactly wandering the arctic wilderness.

Ray's just sitting there, staring at the turtle tank, when something Fraser said hits him. _Quite possibly a danger to himself and others_. A danger to himself-- _oh hell_. He badgered Cal into telling him what happened, brought up a whole lot of fucked up memories, and then left with hardly even a word. That's not-- that's not buddies.

A few minutes with the phone book gets him the desk number to the hotel Cal's staying at. Ray talks the desk clerk into connecting him with Cal's room despite the lateness of the hour, but there's no answer. Six rings and it rolls over into the hotel voicemail system. He sweet-talks the clerk into one more try. No answer.

Ray's starting to get seriously worried. He knew Cal was in a really bad emotional place when he left the hotel, and for there to be no answer at-- he checks the clock-- almost two-thirty in the morning, is not a good sign.

Ray grabs his wallet and jacket and he's out on the road again, headed to Cal's hotel. The desk clerk looks alarmed when he walks in, but Ray flashes his badge and tells her he needs to get into one of the rooms. She hands Ray a room key and doesn't ask any questions, which should be against hotel policy, but he's not about to complain about it.

He gets to Cal's room, knocks on the door, waits, hears nothing, knocks again. Still no answer, so he uses the key. Walks in and finds him lying on the bed with a full ashtray next to him and a half-empty bottle of whiskey. The room stinks of cigarettes and whiskey, with a faint undertone of puke.

Ray sits down on the end of the bed and shakes Cal's foot roughly. He jerks awake all of a sudden, gasping loudly, his eyes wide and freaked-out looking.

"Hey." Cal doesn't say anything, just scrubs his hands over his face and blinks at Ray groggily. "You okay?"

"What the hell are you doing here?" Cal asks, sounding more confused than angry.

"I tried calling you, twice, got no answer. I was worried."

"What, that I'd off myself? Jesus. I'm fine, Ray."

"You don't look fine. You don't smell fine, either."

"So sorry for being such a mess. You've done your good deed, you've made sure I'm not about to eat my gun. You can go home now."

"I'm not here on an errand of mercy."

"Then why are you here? Fuck, Ray, you don't have to be here just because you feel sorry for me."

"I don't feel sorry for you."

"I'm fine, Ray. Go home." Cal sits on the edge of the bed, his arms braced on the mattress, his head hanging.

"Come home with me."

"What?"

"Come home with me. I want you to."

Cal stares at him skeptically. "I'm a mess, Ray. I've got nightmares, I'm jumpy as fuck, and I drink too much. You sure you want me to?"

"I'm sure."

* * *

Cal can't really argue with Ray's insistence that he take a shower and change his clothes-- he does, after all, stink pretty badly. And the hot water feels so damned good that he stays in the shower, leaning against the wall with his eyes closed, until Ray gets worried and knocks on the door.

"What?"

"You passed out in there?"

"Yes, Ray. I'm passed out and sleep-talking to you."

There's the sound of the door opening. Ray sticks his head around the shower curtain. "Sleep-showering, too, huh?"

"Sure. Wanna help me?" Cal narrows his eyes mock-seductively and crooks a finger, beckoning Ray nearer.

Ray smirks. "Mmmm, tempting, but we'd never get out of here."

"Sure we would! Tommorrow morning."

Ray insists that Cal is still too drunk to drive-- and he's right-- so they drive to the apartment in Ray's absolutely fucking beautiful 1967 GTO. Ray fills the awkward silence by telling GTO stories. It reminds Cal of hanging out with the guys, talking motorcycles, but for once it's a good memory.

Ray's apartment is a bachelor pad, messy and cluttered. Cal puts his suitcase down just inside the doorway. "Where do you-- I don't know what you expect of me, here. Am I sleeping on the couch or the bed?"

"The bed." Ray leads the way down a short hallway into a small bedroom, dominated by a queen-sized bed. He sits down on it and looks at Cal questioningly. "What're you thinking?"

Cal drops his suitcase and sits down next to him. "I'm just wondering how you can still want to be with me when you know what I've done."

Ray runs his hands through his hair. "You know, I didn't know if I could, or even if I should, to tell you the honest truth. But I was thinking about it, and then I asked Fraser-- I didn't tell him any details-- and he said that forgiveness kinda depends on whether you regret what you did." He turns to stare directly into Cal's eyes and asks, "So do you? Do you regret what you did?"

"Every fucking minute of every day." The words come out raw. He feels like he's bleeding inside.

"So, we've got a foundation, at least. It's a start." Ray puts a hand on the back of his neck, gently pulls Cal toward him. "It's a start," he says again, and slowly leans forward and kisses him.

It's weird at first, and Cal can't figure out why, until he realizes-- this is the first time they've kissed. All the things they've done, and never the most basic thing. And he's trying to remember when the last time was that he kissed someone-- Bart never kissed, thought it was "faggy." He can't remember for sure, but he thinks it might have been two or three years ago.

It's a slow kiss, gentle, feeling out the territory. Cal lets himself fall back onto the mattress, and Ray follows him all the way down, stretching out on top of him. Cal slides his hands under Ray's tee-shirt, feels warm, soft skin under his fingers. Ray teases him with his tongue, sliding into Cal's mouth, retreating, sucking on Cal's tongue when he gives chase, then letting go and nibbling on Cal's lower lip instead.

Ray pulls back, smiling. "Naked?" he asks.

"Hell yeah." There's a brief flurry of clothing removal. Ray's all golden skin and freckles and long, elegant legs. Next to him Cal feels big and awkward and heavy, but Ray's looking at him pretty damned lustfully, so he decides not to worry about it too much-- Ray obviously likes what he sees.

Ray pounces and tumbles Cal back onto the bed. He props himself up on his elbows and grins down at Cal. "You've had a long day. You should just lie back and enjoy yourself."

"Knock yourself out," Cal drawls.

Ray kisses him again, quickly, and then comes back and lingers, his hands buried in Cal's hair. Cal rubs his hands up and down Ray's back, humming appreciatively. The truth is, it really has been a long day, he's still somewhat drunk, and just lying here and being _done to_ feels amazingly self-indulgent and sexy.

Ray nibbles his way down Cal's neck, to the spot right where neck joins shoulder, and makes like a vampire. Hot mouth, slick tongue, and Cal's moaning and thrusting up against him. Their cocks slide together, soft skin and slick precome, nudging against the warmth of his belly. Cal parts his legs and raises his knees, giving Ray the leverage to push against him harder, and the friction and heat is nice, so very nice, but even better once Cal gets a hand between them, curled around both their cocks.

"Mmmm," Ray moans. He lifts his head up, smiling, his eyes dark and unfocused. "Feels good."

"Ray--" Kissing again, languidly, like they've got all the time in the world. There's no urgency to this. Ray's hips roll in a slow rhythm as Cal strokes their cocks together.

After a while, Ray groans and bucks against him, kissing him deeply, the rhythm picking up, faster and harder. Ray clutches at his upper arms and tucks his head into Cal's shoulder, panting and growling, "Fuck-- oh fuck-- Cal--" and there's an explosion of wet heat and they're coming, falling off the edge of the world together.

They lie there, panting, until their hearts slow down and the sticky heat starts to get uncomfortable. Ray rolls off of him, lies staring up at the ceiling with a blissed-out smile on his face. Cal grabs the edge of the sheet and lazily swipes over both their bellies.

Ray yawns suddenly, like a little kid. "Sleep," he announces.

"Uh-huh," Cal agrees, yawning, pulling the blankets up from the foot of the bed.

Ray rolls on his side, reaches back and tugs on Cal's arm until he gives in and spoons. Ray settles down with a satisfied hum, holding Cal's hand captive against his chest.

Cal closes his eyes and buries his nose in Ray's prickly-soft hair. Isn't this how the night started out, several eons ago? Cal can't believe Ray's still speaking to him, much less holding onto him like Cal's his favorite teddy bear.

He's sure Ray will come to his senses soon, figure out what a worthless piece of shit he is, but until then Cal will just keep holding on til Ray pushes him away.


End file.
